The Merchant Freighter

You doze off a few hours out from Mos Eisley. Your dreams are vague, you see flashes of Leia, Imperial officers and troopers milling around her. At a certain point your mind even goes back to the events in the tent, your enjoyable time with Camie and Rika. Of course, this can't last forever, and it isn't long before you find yourself being shaken awake.

"Luke, Luke wake up, looks like trouble!" Camie says, one hand on the speeder's controls, the other shaking your shoulder. Groaning, you open your eyes and **** yourself forward in the desert heat.

Camie has killed the speed. A few dunes ahead, you see a gleaming chromium-plated star ship, a light freighter, fairly new, something of a rarity for a backwater like Tatooine.

"Get back! Get. Back!" a woman cries out from the landing ramp. Her statement isn't intended for any of your group, but her aggressors, a group of Tusken Raiders. They roar and raise their makeshift rifles at her. When they shoot, she hunkers behind the wreckage of a storage crate and responds by sending a few emerald bolts at them from her compact blaster pistol.

"Good heavens!" C-3PO cries out from the rear of the Speeder, where he's been magnetically fastened. "Master Luke, is your planet always so dangerous?!"

"This is a little out of the ordinary, Threepio!" you say, before addressing your human companions. "We've gotta help her!"

Rika zooms up level with you and hits the brake. An expert stop brings her level with you. The scavenger lifts up her goggles. Her dark skin is radiant with sweat from the twin suns.

"We need a plan." Rika says. "I count six Tuskens."

One of the raiders attempts to charge up the freighter's landing ramp. He roars, whirling his gaffi stick, and the spacer, a redhead in black, screams and blasts him in the chest for his troubles.

"Okay, five Tuskens." Rika corrects herself.

"I've got it!" Camie says. Taking charge, she nimbly hops out of the speeder, and beckons for Rika to take her place.

"You bring the landspeeder up, brake turn and roll out the door on the opposite side of it from them. Me and Luke'll use it as cover while we take shots at the Tuskens." Camie says, frantic but cool. She's already reaching back into the craft to grab your old blaster, discarded after you traded up off the heavy pistol you took off one of your bandit friends.

"Now hang on," you begin, feeling a little threatened by Camie's quick formulation of a plan. "Who's to say you should put yourself at risk like that? Maybe Ben-"

"Luke, I'd whip my tits out again, but it looks like these guys seem like they're past that sort of thing." Camie says, giving you a cheeky smile. "Now come on. Beside, I'd bet twenty credits I'm the best shot here. I logged a lot of... practice sessions with Daril in Wayfar before he went to the Army Academy."

"...Fine." the less you hear about any of that, the better, you decide.

"It would seem Young Marstrap is bounds ahead of the rest of us." Kenobi says, seeming very amused as he exits the landspeeder and adjusts his robe. "Do try to keep up, Luke."

"I might object to this plan." C-3PO speaks up as Rika gets behind the controls. "If the speeder is used as cover in a blaster exchange, Artoo and I might be hit!"

"Easy, Threepio. Shut down for five minutes, you'll be fine." Camie assures him. Toting your old blaster, she looks less like the childhood friend you palled around Tosche Station with, and more like the galactic adventurer she was only a scant couple of days into being. You were suddenly filled with resolve, an overpowering urge to match her boldness and quick-thinking.

"Let's do this." you say, drawing your new blaster pistol.

Rika brings the speeder towards the freighter, and you and Camie jog across the sand close behind. As she draws close, she pulls the attention of the remaining Tuskens, and they turn, splitting their focus between your group and the spacer on the landing ramp.

A couple blast at Rika, but the lithe scavenger is low, almost flattened in the front seat. One bolt goes wide, hurtling past all of you, over the dunes, and into the endless blue of the Tatooine sky. Another hits the front of the landspeeder, not doing much more than leaving a smoking carbon scoring mark.

Rika does a brake turn, the speeder now lengthwise, an effective barrier between you and the Tusken ****. Adept and cool under pressure, she opens the door and scrambles out, staying low as you and Camie crash into the side of the speeder, making sure to keep your heads down.

"That was textbook, Rika." you say, huddling close to her as you and Camie ready to fire.

"Thanks! You're up, farmboy." the dark-skinned wastelander pecks you on the cheek. You exchange a glance with Camie, and the come up, blasters at the ready.

Your sudden intrusion seems to take the dune-dwellers by surprise. Camie's quick to capitalise, tagging one of the raiders still facing the ship in the shoulder. A couple more shots to his center of mass and he's down. As you get a bead on another Tusken's head, this one facing the three of you, you idly wonder if maybe Camie should've been on blaster duty against the Bandits the other day.

You let off a shot, the heavy blaster almost flying out of you hand from the recoil. The bolt hits its mark, impacting the Tusken. You call it payback for that other one cleaning your clock with his gaffi stick back outside Obi-Wan's.

The redhead on the ramp seems surprised by your unexpected appearance, but isn't about to let the confusion its caused go to waste. She lets off a volley of green-hued bolts, splitting the focus of the Tuskens.

You and Camie keep firing, while Rika, as of now unarmed, covers her ears and makes herself as small a target as possible behind the speeder.

A beat or two later, and you've all but routed the desert marauders. Only one remains. You feel frozen in place as you see him get a bead on you. He's about to fire at your head when a whistle, high and clear distracts him. Instinctively, the Tusken whips around and takes a shot at the noise.

You see Obi-Wan, cloaked and high on a ridge. His lightsaber is ignited. The blaster bolt hurtles towards him, crossing the sizeable distance in a heartbeat. Your feel a surge of panic, but the Jedi Knight's hands move quicker than seems possible, almost on instinct. He parries the Tusken's blaster bolt, sends it hurtling back it him. It impacts his chest and the raider falls, felled, like all his companions.

You can't help but feel a sense of awe as the hermit Uncle Owen warned you off from deactivates his weapon and casually walks down towards you. You stand up, Rika and Camie are unhurt, and the droids are in perfect condition.

"Hello over there!" you call out, holstering your weapon and bringing your hands up in a show of friendship. "We saw the attack, and just had to help."

"Thanks for the save!" the redhead says, stowing her own blaster. Even despite the end of the immediate threat, she seems worried.